


all in the timing

by greymon



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, potentially gratuitous pining, see also: dean ambrose's thesis about how seth rollins is actually a practicing nudist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greymon/pseuds/greymon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seth Rollins: psychology major, mixed martial artist, and founder of the on-campus LARPing organization. Spends all his extra money on tickets to metal shows, taught to cook by his good Southern momma. Sharp as a tack and just as (woefully, nakedly, but Dean's getting ahead of himself) underfoot.</p><p>Dean has never been more embarrassed by how badly he wants to bang someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all in the timing

**Author's Note:**

> this wouldn't exist without miss nik (@hellonik), my faithful companion and wrestling prison wife, and of course i'm endlessly grateful to the incomparable lucy (@heyspibsy) for beta work and tolerance of fic-related whining at all hours. if y'all are the roman and dean that i've been fortunate enough to wind up with, it would be an honor to take over the world with you. ♥
> 
>   
>  [here's the fic post on tumblr, if you are someone who enjoys reblogging things!](http://moxmallows.tumblr.com/post/104272721176/fic-all-in-the-timing-dean-seth-1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i asked, on [my tumblr](http://disturbancedive.tumblr.com/), for prompts based on _texts from last night_ posts. this is one of those that. got. very out of hand. the text used is actually the first line of the fic, so i don't feel the need to put it up here as well. i listened to taylor swift's _new romantics_ a bunch of times while i was writing this, so that's where the title comes from. this fic turned into a wild ride, and i'm very excited for everyone to see where it's going! (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

>   _(520): i head back to the dorms in less than a week i'm not ready to see my roommate naked that much again_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_Oh come on d how bad could it b_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_no ok you don’t get to do that you don’t live with him_

From: THOR ♞♞  
 _Youre probably overreacting_  

To: THOR ♞♞  
_EXCUSE YOU I’M DOING NO SUCH THING_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_HE’S LITERALLY NAKED AT THE MOST INCONVENIENT TIMES_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_WHICH IS ALWAYS_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_U could just fuck him and get it over w_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_you are like, the opposite of helpful_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_I mean u asked_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_I thought we established that he was into u_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_we established that he was into YOU. you know, like the rest of the world_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_Changin the subject_

From: THOR ♞♞  
_GTG_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_yeah whatever_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_you’re on my list, reigns_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_this is an extreme best-friend crisis of a sensitive and potentially volatile nature and you are ignoring me_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_HAVE FUN SCREWING YOUR HOT GIRLFRIEND AND NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ME, YOUR BEST FRIEND_

To: THOR ♞♞  
_do you have a successful relationship just to spite me_

Roman doesn’t answer right away, which is about what Dean expects - he’s not really the type to stick around once he’s made his exit. Dean sighs noisily and sets his phone down on his collarbones, folding his arms back behind his head and staring up at the ceiling of his truck.

He’s sprawled out shirtless in the backseat (incidentally where he’d spent most of his winter break, and if anyone asks he went on a cross-country road trip) with one long leg bent at the knee so he can jiggle his foot against the door.

When his phone vibrates again he nearly loses it, catching it with his chin and fumbling to check it.

From: THOR ♞♞  
_Cmon man this could be ur semester_

“God, fuck _off_ ,” Dean mutters good-naturedly to no one at all, and he taps out a text that says about the same thing.

The thing is that - Roman knows Dean’s roommate, it’s not like he’s clueless, but he’s never _lived with him_ , and as far as Dean is concerned, that makes all the shitkicking difference. There’s a fat, wet line between being Seth Rollins’s friend and being his roommate.

Seth Rollins: psychology major, mixed martial artist, and founder of the on-campus LARPing organization. Spends all his extra money on tickets to metal shows, taught to cook by his good Southern momma. Sharp as a tack and just as (woefully, nakedly, but he’s getting ahead of himself) underfoot.

Dean has never been more embarrassed by how badly he wants to bang someone.

The two of them had started living together halfway through their freshman years entirely by coincidence - Dean’s roommate had dropped out, leaving him alone in a double room for a couple of weeks, Seth had apparently requested a change of scenery after toughing out first semester living with (and Dean quotes:) Stuck Up Fuckup Randy Orton. 

The pairing had made sense, and they were living together by February. Now, almost a year later and roommates once again but by choice, there are some things Dean has come to learn about Seth.

One, Seth is goddamn beautiful. He just is. He’s ridiculous, too - half his hair is dyed red, he has the dark mark tattooed on his tricep, and he’s got a funny little gap between his teeth. But he is definitely beautiful and Dean definitely wants to tear multiple orgasms out of him with just his teeth and tongue.

Two, he’d had the same girlfriend for three years in high school. Would probably be with her still if he’d elected to stay in Iowa instead of coming out to NYU - and, incidentally, coming out.

Three, he’s incredibly anal about just about everything. He’s a neat freak at the best of times, and he can be downright bratty if his space gets cluttered. There’s a weekly calendar page on his desk coordinated in seven different colors to a master schedule hanging on his wall - and he actually _uses_ it.

Four, Seth can’t sing. At all. Not even remotely. Not if you held a gun to his head.

Any one of those things could, Dean supposes, complicate the roommate situation, but in fact it’s worked out rather well for both of them. Both of their majors are too demanding for them to really sleep much (or, as it happens, have sex too often, so there’s no real issue of privacy), Seth lets Dean use the pull-up bar he’d installed on the wall, and Dean finds Seth’s trashy taste in music to be part of his charm. Dean would consider himself extremely fortunate if not for a fifth item on the list:

Seth hates clothes. 

Or, he must, because he hardly ever wears them. He’s got an even tan, a clear six-pack and basically no body fat, and shoulder-length Aphrodite curls that fall across his neck in a handful when he does push-ups. It’s _obscene_. Dean thinks he might be a porn star, but Google has proven fruitless since he’s known him.

In the half-year they’d bunked together as freshmen, Dean is certain he’d seen every corner of Seth’s body at least thirty times, each as its own separate occasion, and more than half of those times had occurred in the dead of winter. Like, it’s not _him_. He’s not _crazy_. 

It really doesn’t help that everyone in the house they’re posted up in this year is in full support of it. Even their acting RA (AJ Lee, political science major, apocalypse theorist, and comic book collector) doesn’t care - Seth will walk out into the communal kitchen freshly showered and in nothing but a pair of cutoff jeans, and AJ will only pinch his buttcheek and affectionately bully him a little. It would be infuriating if Dean didn’t also want to get bent over by him and taken from behind.

(He’d considered going to AJ for advice, but the last time Dean had knocked on her door there had been twelve other women in various states of undress in her room with her, tipsy and discussing the _Gravity Falls_ cartoon show. She’s kind of a force of nature.)

Dean is dreading returning, but it’s the kind of confusing dread where any time he thinks about it he sort of also wants to touch himself through his jeans. Awful.

But, he also happens to be alone in a dark park in the warmth of his truck, so what the hell.

 

* * *

 

From: Babydoll ♛  
_Hey, Pit. (:_

From: Babydoll ♛  
_You awake?_

From: Babydoll ♛  
_Come onnnnn._

From: Babydoll ♛  
_I’ve called you like ten times, you never sleep this well at school._

Dean grunts and gropes around for his phone - he gets a finger on it while it’s still buried under the driver’s seat in front of him, and contorts his body ridiculously in order to pull it closer to him. He checks the time and flicks blearily through his most recent texts.

To: Babydoll ♛  
_jesus christ baby could you not be yourself for like two seconds_

Right. Babydoll.

Contrary to anything AJ Lee ever says, Dean and Seth aren’t a couple. They never have been a couple. They’re not even friends with benefits, something that drives Dean up the actual wall on a regular basis - but he hadn’t really expected Seth to go for him anyway, so he’s managed to get by with only a lingering sense of hopeless, detached arousal.

Seth’s nickname had come about on a memorable night in October, during a theatre afterparty that happened to be going on in their house’s common room. 

Neither Dean nor Seth really have the free time to be in theatre, but at any given time one of their housemates is probably in a show. They try to go to as many as they can, but even the ones they miss they wind up having to wade through a lot of drunk actors to get back to their dorm room from the commons. And it’s no bother, really - the theatre department is a ragtag bunch of friendly nerds, and they’re more likely to play Oscar Wilde drinking games than break any bottles.

On this particular night, Dean had been on his way back from study-buddying with Roman, who had commandeered him into sitting up in the physics lab with him so he wouldn’t fall asleep on a surge protector and set his hair on fire. Dean had obliged, because a) that’s what best friends are for, b) Roman’s hair is its own endangered animal and he’d hate to have that on his record, and c) he’d needed the study time anyway, and Roman is always good company.

He had already bidden Roman farewell and made the trek back to his house. He'd even only been sleepily amused by the crowd in the commons once he'd arrived there - Dean can sleep through a natural disaster, much less a gaggle of actors getting emotional about _Star Trek_. He's always prepared to come home to an afterparty, and always prepared to make his tired way through the horde.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was to open the door to his and Seth’s room and see a man at _least_ ten years Seth’s senior asleep in his bed. He’d been able to hear the sink running in their adjoined bathroom.

“Um,” he’d called, and he'd heard Seth spit noisily.

“Fucking - _shit_ , goddamnit,” and Seth had poked himself out of the bathroom, looking at Dean with toothpaste in his gap tooth and nothing on but a pair of form-fitting boxer-briefs.

“Thighs,” Dean greets, which hadn’t been what he’d intended to say at all.

Long story short, a theatre professor and friend of Seth’s had gotten drunk and passed out halfway through reciting all of _Midsummer_ , and Seth had been elected to put him up to sleep somewhere until it wore off.

Seth had insisted, vehemently, that they didn’t fuck. And Dean had believed it, but then he’d made some throwaway comment about daddykink and - Seth had denied it, but he’d blushed, and Dean had decided then and there to be merciless for the rest of his natural life.

(“So, um,” Seth had started, sheepish, about an hour after Dean had entered the room. “Can we share your bed? I’ll put clothes on, I swear.”

“Absolutely,” Dean had allowed, with a kind smile. “And just so you know, I am king of the masturbating-without-waking-up-bedmates challenge, and I don’t intend to forfeit my nobility for you.”)

At any rate, Seth knows better than to complain, lest he be relegated to ‘Sporty Spice’ again.

From: Babydoll ♛  
_Come on, dude, don’t be an asshole, we should figure out what time we’re both getting back to campus._

Seth calling him an asshole makes him want to smile and he does, turning his eyes to the ceiling for a brief second.

To: Babydoll ♛  
_ a leopard can’t change its shorts. also why do we have to talk about that can’t we just show up _

From: Babydoll ♛  
_ AJ wants everyone to check in themselves and their room before the day’s over, and she’ll only do room inspections if everyone who lives there is present.  _

From: Babydoll ♛  
_ Also, we’re not allowed to like, touch or move anything in there till she does ‘em and I know if I see the bar on the wall I’m gonna be drawn to it like a moth. _

From: Babydoll ♛  
_ And she’ll probably beat me up. _

To: Babydoll ♛  
_ you have an addiction _

To: Babydoll ♛  
_ but i’m here to support you _

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _And you are literally a pimple on the earth's ass. (:_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _But I love you anyway._

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _those are fightin' words i know how to read your blog_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _No you don't._

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _yeah you're right_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Uh huh._

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Is my name still Babydoll in your phone, by the way?_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _no_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _what did you need to talk to me about again_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Just tell me where the heck you are._

Dean blinks. It actually takes him a few moments to remember where he is, and he's not sure what it says about him that bitching back and forth with Seth had come before that.

He sits up, back aching with the pressure he'd put on it sleeping in the backseat of his truck. He has a pillow back there, and a couple of blankets he's collected over the years, but the truth is it's still a little small and wrings his back out of alignment something serious. He sets his phone in his lap and absently rolls his shoulder, checking out the window.

It’s snowing outside, almost a given for January, but it hasn’t piled up too badly over where he’d parked early this morning. He’d driven all night, then decided to stop at, at -

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _i’m at a rest stop thing in fordham_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Oh thank God._

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _I was afraid you would’ve put it off and been stranded in Baltimore or something._

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _when have i ever been known to procrastinate_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Never. Clearly, I just have an overactive imagination._

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _So you’re - what, thirty minutes away? Forty-five?_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _maybe if i believed in stop signs or the safety of pedestrians_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _gimmee like 15_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Um, you do know there’s traffic in this city, right?_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _:)_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Just checking._

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Well, so be it. Just make sure you get those fifteen done fast, we’re supposed to have six inches by tomorrow morning._

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _i’ll show you six inches_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _and by six i mean sixty_

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _Good save._

From: Babydoll ♛  
 _I’ll meet you at home._

And Dean'd be lying if he'd tried to say that doesn't still make his heart flutter a little, hearing Seth call their little burrow  _home_. He adores their place, and adores that he has Seth living in it with him - nudist tendencies and ensuing sexual tension notwithstanding.

He remembers earlier in the year, when Seth had taken a three-week medical leave for a neck surgery, and how enormous the room had felt without his weird turny push-up stands on the floor. Dean had been so glad to have them back; his home just hadn't felt like home without Seth.

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _you got it man_

To: Babydoll ♛  
 _don't be naked_

**Author's Note:**

> • dean refers to _aphrodite curls_ \- most likely, he's referring to something [like this](http://www.kusardi.com/ea/8844_Aphrodite.jpg).  
> 


End file.
